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No one who knew him would argue that he wasn’t one of the sweetest creatures who ever graced this earth.

He was soft and furry. He had big, fluffy feet and long whiskers.

And he loved to sing in the shower.

He was adored by both Linda and I but Spooky and I shared a special bond, like nothing I’ve ever felt in my life and no doubt ever will again.

His full name was Marshmallow “Spooky” NoHo. He got his nickname because he was so shy. He didn’t like meeting new people, but if he got to know you, he would sit in your lap or wrap himself around your neck like a scarf and purr loudly. Then he might butt his head on your chin … or your elbow or your shoe and you just knew what he was saying to you, “Hold me.”

Not a night has gone by since I rescued him from the North Hollywood Animal Shelter in September, 1998, that he didn’t sleep in the bed between us and in his later years, under the covers. And unlike most kitties I’ve known, if you moved or rolled over or snored or kneed him during the night, he would just ride it out, wait till you settled down and go back to sleep. And he would stay there, in bed all morning long until I got up. Didn’t matter if I slept till noon. He was not leaving until I rolled out of bed.

Not a night had gone by that that sweet boy didn’t sleep in bed with us, until last night.

Spooky, left the beautiful body he was given at birth yesterday afternoon and headed off into parts unknown. If he slept next to me last night, I couldn’t tell. I didn’t feel his paws on my side or the vibration of his purring. He didn’t drape himself across me this morning as he always did.

When he left, the hole that he left behind was bigger that I could have imagined and the sorrow we now suffer is nearly unbearable.

He was, by all accounts, an old kitty having essentially reached the age of 115 kitty years. But except for the last year or so, he didn’t act his age.

He was always quite vocal, especially when it came to food. He loved salmon, except when he didn’t. He loved tuna, except when he didn’t. He loved people food and cheese and would eat as much bbq chicken as you would give him.

He was of course, like his brother Joey who left us in 2011, a liberal. He was appalled to have to live through eight years of the Bush administration which was half of his life on this planet.

He was sickened by recent events perpetrated by humans and lately tried to ignore the middle east and Paris and Africa preferring to soak up sunshine on the patio sniffing the jasmin wafting through the air and occasionally, half-heartedly swatting at a bee or a fly.

He paid no attention to hummingbirds or lizards or other wildlife. He’d rather be asleep in your lap than running across the lawn or climbing a tree.

He was also, a creature of habit. In his youth he was a bit of a fetch kitty and would chase crushed up cigarette packs up and down the stairs placing them at your feet for hours. Cigarettes packs later became “mice” of all kinds. He love to fetch the plastic ring that seals a carton of milk and would leap into action the minute you said loudly, “Mouse!”

For years when I got home from work he would run to the bed and wait for me to sit down to take off my shoes, knowing petting would ensue. If he was on the desk where you were working and you placed a pencil (or anything) there, he would just calmly kick it to the ground, over and over and over.

In the last few years, he loved to get up on the sink in the master bedroom ostensibly to drink from the faucet once you turned it on but after quenching his thirst, he would just sit there, looking at himself in the mirror, probably contemplating how much older he looked now and asking himself, “Where’s the time go?”

Finally, in the past year, when his hearing was all but gone, he would get into the shower and sing at the top of his lungs just to hear his own voice reverberating off the tile walls.

Spooky likely suffered a kitty heart attack while Linda was bringing him to see the doctor yesterday afternoon. I’m thankful he didn’t suffer very much or for very long in his last days.

But I’m also devastated.

I’m devastated that I’ll never hear his beautiful voice singing in the shower again. I’m devastated that he won’t be at my side waiting for me to wake up every morning.

I’m devastated that my face was not the last one he saw before leaving.

It was with excruciatingly heavy hearts that we buried him last night in one of his favorite places to lounge, under an oak tree in our backyard, right next to his brother Joseph.

Wherever it is that he went so suddenly, without a proper goodbye from me, I hope to meet up with him there someday.

Posts in WordPress require a headline which becomes part of the url or permalink. So it’s best practice to write a headline that is SEO friendly, because you write this shit for other people to find and read.

So while “pick your cliché” may not be the most searchable phrase and in fact the word cliché has that special character, e-acute, in it which makes it even less searchy, it’s better than the head I probably would have chosen for this post which might have been something like “Full circle or how I went from small-time shooter to big-city journo … and back.”

In fact, while I’m on the topic, I should actually change the name of this blog to something like, “VisualKaos, meaningless blather from a SoCal-based vizjourno seemingly preoccupied with rambling run-on sentences that are used as rhetorical devices via the comma splice while musing about how fast time flies by and where the fuck his entire life and career went, through discrete blog entries displayed in reverse chronological order.”

While that would more accurately describe this and many other posts found here it’s also, less than SEO friendly.

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I’ve said this before, possibly to the point of irritation but three decades go by pretty fast.

Two thousand thirteen marks 30 years since I stared in the journalism business.

That would have been February, 1983. The Soviet Union performed two underground nuclear tests, “Thriller” went number one and stayed there for 37 weeks, Wayne Gretzky set an NHL all-star record with 4 goals in 1 period, there was an apocalyptic snowstorm on the eastern seaboard and I was spending evenings drinking margaritas at Charlie Brown’s in Ventura while wearing a black, Member’s Only jacket, acid-washed Jordache jeans and high-top, LA Gear sneakers.

Also, 27-year-old Steve Jobs appeared on the cover of Fortune along with a story about how he “gets his jollies” making great computers. At that point the Apple II was showing it’s age and the Lisa had yet to come out.

My first day as a news photographer was February 7. Ventura County was experiencing torrential rain storms and although I thought my first day on the job would be to tag along with the Oxnard Press Courier’s chief photographer David Crane, I was told to “go get some rain art.”

What I settled on was this old Harry Nilsson song from his 1972 album Son of Schmilsson.

This hauntingly beautiful song became my favorite last Christmas and again this year.

And although it’s kind of slow and syrupy, it just seemed to fit what our year was like.

If you followed the link I posted on Facebook last week, I’m sorry to make you listen to it again.

Personally, I could listen to it over and over, and I did for the past two weeks.

But while I was editing the video, most of the images from 2012 just didn’t work with this music. So this represents a small part of what would have been the best images of the year.

Not a good way to try to break my record of 2011, but I’m going to let Harry carry it.

So, it’s the last day of the year and this piece is all of 5 minutes. Same length as last year.

If you’ve gotten this far, then you probably have 5 more minutes.

Why “Walkin the Dawg?” It’s a song by Rufus Thomas and released on his 1963 album of the same name. It’s been covered by a ton of people including The Stones, The Grateful Dead and Green Day but my favorite cover is by Aerosmith.